You say I’m a freak. Just because I wear black all the time.
Because I have long hair. Because I refuse to wear Eastland Shoes or a Duckhead Sweatshirt. For this I am a weirdo, a Satan Worshipper, or a variety of other expletives that I hear on a daily basis mumbled under the collective breath of the “In Crowd”. I choose to express myself in ways outside the mores and norms that society has programmed into your mental circuitry.
I am not a cog that grinds along with the other gears in a giant social juggernaut. I am not the conformist robot that you and your “friends” embody. I am a free thinker: An individual.
I’ve never killed another human. Nor have I raped or robbed like some of you would like to believe I have. For the most part, I am a decent person. I try to live according to the Golden Rule and to respect those who respect me. Yet you treat me worse than a common criminal. At least a felon has the chance to plea his case in the hopes of proving his innocence. I, on the other hand, have been convicted and sentenced long before I even knew I was on trial. I walked past you clique, I was judged, and branded with a scarlet ‘IF” (Freak) without even having time to tell you my name.
Is it that you fear me? Maybe, but it likely runs deeper that that. It is what I represent that terrorizes those of your kind. I am about new ideas, new emotions, new ways of looking at old problems. And in your rose-tinted world there is no room for my breed. My thoughts are in direct conflict with your mass produced, homogenized beliefs of normalicy.
I rebel not just against my parents, the schools, or various other aspects of “the system”. I slaughter every sacred cow so I can fix an establishment sandwich, chew it up and spit it out so the world can see just what their way of life is: Regurgitation.
This is not a new trend. open up that history book that the county issued you, the one that now sits under your bed among the dust bears and roach clips. Read about Frederick Douglas, Alexander Bell and Jesus Christ. Find out about Rosa Parks, Frank Lloyd Wright and Patrick Henry. These people went against popular opinion to do the impossible, the extraordinary, or just do what was right. I am not as great as these men and women. I’ve yet to appear in a high school text book, and I won’t be dying for the sins of the world anytime soon. But I do have something to say, and I will say it LOUDLY. Just as the great ones before have done.
You could do so, too. But you choose to let others lead you. Because being accepted is easier than being great. And, in order to maintain your-popularity, you feel you must tear down those with ideas that are counter to the ones you’ve stolen from your oh-so-cool peers. You cram your thoughts of rightness down my throat. That seems unfair, since I don’t think you should listen to Anthrax or Suicidal Tendencies. I don’t think you should dye your hair or get a nipple ring. So why do I have to wear an Oxford and penny loafers to avoid your scrutiny? Just because I don’t have a tie doesn’t mean I don’t have a mind.
Why should I have to alter my image in order to go to my classes in peace? You claim to be Christian, yet you pass judgement upon me? When did you become free from sin? Your GOD has said that whatsoever you do to the least of his people, that you do unto him. Just think how he feels when he must dodge the verbal spears you hurl at him when I crouch at my bottom locker. He cries with me at night when I hold the gun to my head and pray for the strength to pull the trigger. And it is all because of you.
So you say I am evil? If your GOD were hear before you, he might say different. And if you continue to act like this, then your car will not be unmanned when the rapture comes, no matter how many fish stickers you put on the bumper of the LeBaron that Daddy Lawyer and Mommy C.P.A. bought on your 16th. That is what you should truly fear.
